Anime Like The Mentalist
If you loved The Mentalist's Crime and Drama storytelling, these anime deliver a similar experience — selected for art style, narrative depth, and emotional impact. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
The Rockford Files
Cranky but likable L.A. PI Jim Rockford pulls no punches (but takes plenty of them). An ex-con sent to the slammer for a crime he didn't commit, Rockford takes on cases others don't want, aided by his tough old man, his lawyer girlfriend and some shady associates from his past.
Criminal Minds
An elite team of FBI profilers analyze the country's most twisted criminal minds, anticipating their next moves before they strike again. The Behavioral Analysis Unit's most experienced agent is David Rossi, a founding member of the BAU who returns to help the team solve new cases.
Monk
Adrian Monk was once a rising star with the San Francisco Police Department, legendary for using unconventional means to solve the department's most baffling cases. But after the tragic (and still unsolved) murder of his wife Trudy, he developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now working as a private consultant, Monk continues to investigate cases in the most unconventional ways.
Prodigal Son
The son of a notorious serial killer becomes an acclaimed criminal psychologist who uses his unique insight into how killers think to help the NYPD.
Numb3rs
Inspired by actual cases and experiences, Numb3rs depicts the confluence of police work and mathematics in solving crime as an FBI agent recruits his mathematical genius brother to help solve a wide range of challenging crimes in Los Angeles from a very different perspective.
Lie to Me
The world's leading deception researcher, Dr. Cal Lightman, studies facial expression, body language and tone of voice to determine when a person is lying and why, which helps law enforcement and government agencies uncover the truth. But his skills also make it easier for him to deceive others.
Profiler
Rachel Burke is a criminal profiler, one of the best, actually. She, along with a sophisticated team of specialists on the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force in Atlanta, investigates crimes throughout the country. Together, they solve the toughest of cases while trying to live their lives as best they can.
More Anime Like The Mentalist
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
A Las Vegas team of forensic investigators are trained to solve criminal cases by scouring the crime scene, collecting irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that solve the mystery.
Harrow
When a dark secret from this past threatens to be exposed, unorthodox and brilliant medical examiner, Doctor Daniel Harrow, must use all his forensic skills to keep it buried forever.
The Catch
Strong and successful Alice Martin is a fraud investigator who's about to be the victim of fraud by her fiancé. Between her cases, she is determined to find him before it ruins her career.
Truth Be Told
Descend into the world of true-crime podcasts with Poppy Parnell, who risks everything—including her life—to pursue truth and justice.
Baretta
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
Wild Cards
A spirited con woman and a demoted by-the-book detective are given the chance to redeem themselves. The catch? They have to find a way to work together each using their unique skills to solve crimes.
Medium
Allison Dubois works in the District Attorney’s office using her natural intuition about people and her ability to communicate with the dead to help to solve crimes. Her dreams often give her clues to the whereabouts of missing people.
CSI: NY
Follow the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers identified as "Crime Scene Investigators".
The Closer
Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.
Shark
Notorious Los Angeles defense attorney Sebastian Stark becomes disillusioned with his career after his successful defense of a wife-abuser results in the wife's death. After more than a month trying to come to grips with his situation, he is invited by the Los Angeles district attorney to become a public prosecutor so he can apply his unorthodox-but-effective talents to putting guilty people away instead of putting them back on the street.
Perception
Dr. Daniel Pierce, a neuroscientist and professor, is recruited to help the federal government crack difficult cases. His intimate knowledge of human behavior and masterful understanding of the mind give him an extraordinary ability to read people, but his eccentric view of the world and less-than-stellar social skills can often interfere with his work.
Rizzoli & Isles
Perhaps their strikingly different personalities make the relationship between detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles so effective. Jane, the only female cop in Boston's homicide division, is tough, relentless and rarely lets her guard down, while the impeccably dressed Maura displays a sometimes icy temperament — she is, after all, more comfortable among the dead than the living. Together, the best friends have forged a quirky and supportive relationship; they drop the protective shield in each other's company, and combine their expertise to solve Boston's most complex cases.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with The Mentalist (2008): Crime and Drama themes, comparable animation style, and similar narrative pacing. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface anime most likely to resonate with fans of The Mentalist.
See full details for The Mentalist (2008)